GT1, GT2, GT3 combined into new ‘World GT’ class

Following the FIA’s world council meeting in early June it was announced that from 2012 a new ‘GT World class’ will be created, balancing the performance of 2011 GT1 cars, 2009 GT2 cars and 2011 GT3 cars to enable them to compete in a single FIA GT World Championship. A review of the performance of these three categories of cars will be conducted in order to open up the Championship to a greater number of makes.
This follows a very poor showing at Silverstone’s Tourist Trophy where only 14 cars took the start of the FIA GT1 World Championship race.
With Grand-Am, the ACO and SRO all running GT class cars in 2012 which suit this new category it is almost a true ‘World’ category. However the omission of GT300 & GT500 cars from Japan leaves one very important market missing. Interestingly the regulations of DTM and GT500 have been aligned whilst Grand-Am will run separate races for the cars.
GT300 cars could easily be accommodated but there seems to be little interest from either side.

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Sam grew up in South London within sight of the long abandoned Crystal Palace Race Circuit, yet found himself on work experience in the loom shop at Williams F1 aged 16. He has been heavily involved in the sport ever since, having gained a Nationa Diploma in Motorsport Engineering from East Surrey College (where he also built and raced a Group N Ford Fiesta) and studied Automotive Engineering at Oxford Brookes University.
Collins has written for Motorsport News, Autosport, Model Collector, Speed TV, 750 Bulletin, Rafahiya and a number of others. He has also written a number of books including Autodrome, and Unraced. He is also the Editor of Stockcar Engineering magazine.
As a driver Collins has competed in stockcar racing, Formula Vee, stage and road rallying as well as many local events. He still competes occasionally in the European Late Model Series. His fairly random musings on motorsport can be found on the official twitter feed @racecarengineer